


The Visitor

by hernameinthesky



Category: Affinity - Sarah Waters
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Nightmares, brief description of strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21790192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hernameinthesky/pseuds/hernameinthesky
Summary: The first spirit Selina saw.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	The Visitor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slightlykylie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlykylie/gifts).



> This isn't exactly what you asked for, slightlykylie, but I hope you enjoy this look into Selina's past anyway.

The dark is close all about her when she wakes. There’s not a sound or stir of movement in the room, but she’s frightened. The air is very cold against her clammy skin and her nightdress is bunched and twisted uncomfortably beneath her. She tries to call for her Auntie, but can only breathe out a hoarse breath that catches on her dry lips and causes a spasm of pain in her chest. She ought to light her candle, it’s right there on the bedside table if she reaches out, but she can’t bring herself to, can sense something waiting beside her, ready to grab her if she moves from the bed. 

As she thinks this, there’s a whisper like the rustle of skirts and she can’t even cry out in fear as a pale figure comes out of the dark and leans over her. She squeezes her eyes tight shut, gasping breaths that hurt her chest horribly. Fingers crawl against her neck, pressing down. She can’t breathe, her chest is burning, her body paralysed while instinct screams out to fight the strangling hand, to claw, to throw it off-

She wakes choking and gagging on something in her throat that comes up thick and sticky and shockingly red. Auntie is there, rubbing her back, wiping her mouth. She is in her own softly lit bedroom, no sign of any figure but her own dear Auntie. But it’ll come back, Selina knows. It won’t let her go that easily.

* * *

Auntie is fascinated by the dreams. She has Selina go over them again and again, catching on what seem to be inconsequential details to Selina.

“The rusting sounds like a lady’s skirts?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said it did before. So it’s a lady. And her face, her figure, what are they like?”

“I don’t know, I’m sorry. I don’t like to look.”

Auntie leans down so that they’re eye to eye. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but perhaps it hurts because you don’t look. I’ve been reading all about it, and spiritual powers can be dangerous if they’re denied.”

And so Auntie takes her to see a lady of great power. The house where she lives and works seems very shabby for such a lady, but Auntie explains it’s because her powers are ridiculed when they ought to be celebrated. They’re lead through a clean but bare corridor into a small, dim room made stiflingly hot by a fire in the grate and thick curtains pulled shut. The lady introduces herself as Miss Valentine and asks Selina a lot of questions about her dreams. She seems particularly impressed by the detail that Auntie mentions when Selina forgets, that she always believes she’s waking up at the start of the dream.

“I keep my eyes shut to remind myself I’m dreaming,” Selina says.

Miss Valentine exchanges a significant look with Auntie.

She has Selina lie down on a sofa and puts one hand over her eyes and the other to her neck, pressing gently here and there, her fingers heavy with rings.

“Yes, I see,” she murmurs. “The lady is here now, her hand is always at your throat, only you are not developed enough to feel it except in a dream state.”

Selina imagines another hand beneath Miss Valentine’s, ghostly pale, always there, waiting until she’s asleep to press down.

She's very weak and sweaty when Auntie helps her sit up.

“She’s still not quite well,” Auntie explains, stroking her hair distractedly.

Miss Valentine looks very grave. “No, she isn’t. You did right to bring her to me. If you had not she would have grown weaker and weaker, and before long her breath would be gone altogether.”

Auntie grips Selina's hand tightly. “But you’ll be able to make her well? Her powers just need- developing, is that what it’s called?”

“That’s right. She must join our dark circle immediately.

“And do you think, this lady that comes to her, is it somebody we used to know? Someone who’s dead now, I mean.”

“Yes, I think so. I sensed it was a lady who cared for her very deeply, who left unwillingly.”

“Yes,” Auntie gasps. “I knew it. It is her mother, my own dear sister, Diana.”

“Why would my mother hurt me?” Selina asks.

Miss Valentine smiles gently and says, “She comes to save you, not to hurt you. She presses on your throat and steals your breath to show us what will happen if your powers aren’t properly developed. Tonight the dream will be different. She will not hurt you and you will see her face clearly as that of your mother.”

* * *

That night when she wakes, Auntie is waiting for her. She leans over the bed and holds both of Selina’s hands in her own.

“You saw her?”

“Yes.”

“As your mother?” Auntie’s eyes are very bright, her hands squeezing Selina’s so tightly it almost hurts.

“I think so. Maybe.” Auntie’s hands spasm in hers. “I saw fair hair and a white dress.”

Tears roll down Auntie’s cheeks, but she's smiling and so Selina tries to smile back.

“Oh, Selina, that is your mother. If only I had your power. If only the world would open its eyes, Diana could walk freely among us and speak to us at will. The dead are all around us, if only we could see them.”

The idea seems a very terrible one to Selina – the dead hanging like unseen mists in the air, watching and listening and knowing.


End file.
